The invention relates to a method for evaluating the field of vision. The invention furthermore relates to an apparatus for performing the method.
Known from WO 01/60 241 A1 are for instance a method and an apparatus for examining an eye, an image acquisition unit embodied as a camera and an illumination unit being used in conjunction with a computer-supported image evaluation. The illumination unit includes a light source, such as for instance a laser, and a deflection unit or scanning unit, by means of which the light beam from the light source is deflected two-dimensionally in a plane and at least some of the eye, for instance the surface of the retina, is scanned. The reflected light beam is detected by means of the image acquisition unit and a computer evaluates the acquired images, especially using optical coherence tomography (OCT), for representing planar images by means of an image generating device. The apparatus or the opthalmoscope includes closed control circuits with a motor control for an illumination lens for the purpose of automatic focus adjustment of an imaging lens. Moreover, the brightness of the illumination unit is adjustable for the purpose of attaining good contrast and good illumination of the eye to be imaged or of an area of the eye to be imaged.
Furthermore known is a method for examining field of vision, which method is based on representing a stimulus and is described in the publication “Ramachandran V. S., Rogers Ramachandran D.: Phantom Contours: A New Class of Visual Patterns that Selectively Activates the Magnocellular Pathway in Man. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 2, 391 (1992)”. The method or depiction of the stimulus is known as “flicker defined form” and shall be referred to hereinafter as FDF.
The underlying object of the invention is to propose a novel method and an apparatus in order to efficiently evaluate the field of vision of a person and/or in order to detect in particular early signs of disease processes that can lead to limitations in the field of vision. The method and the apparatus should furthermore be embodied and/or optimized such that results for the field of vision examination are combined with results of a structural evaluation of the optic disc in an eye in order to increase diagnostic capability, especially for diseases such as glaucoma that lead to both functional changes in the field of vision and to structural changes in the optic disc. The underlying object of the invention is furthermore to refine the method and the apparatus such that the examination and/or evaluation of the field of vision can be performed in a simple manner and/or such that confidence in decision-making is optimized. Moreover, rapid and reliable testing and/or evaluation should be possible, subjective evaluations being avoided.